For the next few days she went about as if her head was in one place and her body in another. She was light-headed. There was no longer any pain. Conversation with her unborn baby was continuous. Her own and the child’s became the only voices in her head. They drowned out the strident voices of the soldiers and silenced the wailings and tears of her fellow captives. One night when she was pulled from her bed, stripped and beaten, she turned her back on her assailants, taking the blows on shoulders and spine to protect her stomach.
She was constantly looking out for Makris. Every day when they marched towards the place where they collected stones for the new Parthenon she searched for his face among the guards. Even more than before, she wanted to attract his attention, to shout out to him. Before it had been purely to tell him that she was there. Now she had something to say to him: ‘I am carrying our child.’ Putting their differences to one side, surely he would want to know this? Her memory of his cold, expressionless stare was not one she could erase from her mind, but nevertheless she wanted to tell him the news.
One evening when she went down to the sea with a group of others to wash her clothes, she saw some men along the shore and could not avert her eyes. So disabled were they that their broken, pathetic bodies made her weep. If one of them had been Panos, she might not even have recognised him. Perhaps Makris himself had been responsible.
The days passed. She felt her stomach stretching, even though it was still imperceptible to anyone but her. Some of the other women had protruding stomachs that accentuated their skinny legs and arms, and breasts that were still generous from a child-rearing past. Themis observed how female bodies never lost the vestiges of pregnancy and birth, even if a state of near starvation reduced the rest.
Once or twice, a sense of fear and uncertainty swept over her but this passed. She must remain strong. Not just for herself now.
Almost instinctively several other women knew that she was no longer suffering in the same way as they and were suspicious.
‘She’s going to sign,’ she heard one of them saying. ‘I’m sure of it.’
Themis had seen for herself that a state of almost peaceful resignation often came before a woman’s decision to renounce her beliefs. You could see it in someone’s eyes. Everyone could see that there was a change in Themis’ demeanour but their interpretation was wrong.
Largely ignored by most of the women, Themis often found her hand resting on her belly. It was still unnoticeable to others. Her once-small breasts had swelled, but the dresses they wore were shapeless enough to conceal it.
As the days passed, the sun went down later so there was more time for needlework before the light faded. Themis still worked on the heart but nowadays she had other thoughts in her mind: love for the unborn child, who kept her company day and night, gently moving and prodding from within to remind her of its existence. The first heart was almost finished. The dense, satinwork stitches had padded it out to a pleasing fullness and now, to continue the pretence that she was creating a religious piece, she began to sew the words: ‘Mitéra Theoú’, Mother of God. She planned to stop when it read: ‘Mitéra The— and enjoy her private understanding of its meaning. In the opposite corner of the cloth, she had begun a second, smaller heart. When the time came for them to fold up their work, she tucked it into her pocket.
One morning, they were woken early. It seemed only an hour or so since they had gone to bed and it was a rude awakening. Five soldiers came in and walked up and down the rows of sleeping women, whacking them with a stick. Within minutes the women were outside, each holding her rolled-up blanket under one arm as instructed.
Bleary eyed, they stood shivering in the darkness, confused and disorientated. Twenty minutes later they were told to start walking down towards the sea.
Moonlight glistened on the water, illuminating the familiar signs laid out on the hillside in white stones. Then they saw two small boats moored at the quay and Themis felt her hopes rise. They were saying goodbye to Makronisos. They were not being liberated, but perhaps they were going somewhere that was less of a hell.
Twenty-five women and four guards squeezed into each small skiff. Some of the women began to ask questions, but they were ignored. Perhaps the guards themselves did not even know the answers.
The water between the island and the mainland was unusually flat that day and, even with their inadequate engines, the boats got them across to Lavrio within half an hour.
There was a group of soldiers waiting for them and soon they were packed on to a truck. There was so little room that some of them had to stand.
Themis felt a sense of resignation. Whatever her destiny, her only preoccupation was with protecting her unborn child. She put her blanket between herself and the side of the truck and thought of the foetus in its ever-diminishing space. She hoped the child was oblivious to everything taking place only a few centimetres away, and yet she hoped it might be familiar with her voice.
As they were driven along and the sun climbed high, someone began to sing a gentle traditional song. It was a song that they all knew from childhood and soon most of them joined in, Themis loudest of all, hoping that her baby could hear. The soldiers up front were oblivious to the sound of the choir.
Many hours into the journey, the woman next to Themis peered through the slats of the cattle truck and suddenly gasped: ‘It’s my town! We’re in my town!’
The women closest to her craned their necks to see.
‘We’re in Volos! We just passed the end of my street.’
Seeing her birthplace from a different perspective was less of a comfort than a source of grief and the woman wept inconsolably. To be so near and yet so far from home was a double blow.
They trundled eastwards, away from the sun that was now slowly setting. Most women were dozing, the singing had stopped and there was time to think on this seemingly endless journey. Themis began to think of her family and for each member there was a question. Her grandmother. Was she still strong enough to be taking care of the home? Thanasis. Had he regained his strength? Margarita. Was she still in Germany, another broken country where thousands wandered, searching for lost family and food? Panos. Was he captive like her or had he escaped across the border? Her mother. How would psychiatric patients have been cared for during the occupation? The Nazi regime had not been known for its sympathy to anyone but the strong and able-bodied.
Her father. Had he been the only one to survive the chaos that had engulfed the rest of his family? America played a crucial role in Europe now but was itself unscathed. Now that she was to become a mother she questioned, for the first time, his decision to abandon his children. She closed her eyes and thought of a paper boat her father had once made when they went to the seaside. Perhaps it was on the same day that he had taken them to Sounion. For a while it had floated, as stable as if it were made of wood, but suddenly it disappeared and she knew it had sunk, pulled down by its own, brine-saturated weight. She had not been able to understand why her father had tried to persuade her it was out there sailing on the ocean towards its destination. It was clearly a lie.
The truck stopped for a few moments so that the drivers could swap over and the women had time to relieve themselves where they could. They were then given a single flask of water to share between all two dozen of them. The first one began gulping it back.
‘You greedy cow!’ said the woman next to her, snatching it out of her hand.
Her action caused the first woman to spill several drops in the dust and there were shouts of fury from those still waiting to drink. They were ready to fight each other over a few drops of water. By the time Themis was handed the flask there was only a mouthful left and it made her even thirstier than before.
The truck trundled on for a few hours and, much to the relief of all the women, who were plagued by cramp, it broke down for a few hours, giving them welcome respite. Eventually, around dawn the following morning, there was a crunch of brakes and Themis was thrown against the woman next
to her.
When the back of the truck was let down, the extraordinary beauty of the Pelion landscape was revealed. There were olive trees in their immediate surroundings and beyond, pines covered the folds and curves of the hills and mountains that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was a landscape created by the gods and unravaged by man. Themis stood still for a moment and stared. The colourlessness of these past months only increased her appreciation of the sweep of emerald and azure that stretched out before her.
A sharp voice cut into her brief moment of reverie.
‘Get into order,’ one of their guards bellowed. ‘And make your way down to the boat.’
The women formed themselves into a ragged line, their legs barely functioning after the hours of inactivity, and stumbled towards a boat that bobbed in the shallows.
They were obliged to wade into the sea and their clothes were heavy with seawater even before they clambered in.
For the first time, Themis’ pregnant belly made her feel cumbersome and her damp dress clung to her, dragging her down. Two of the women had to help her on to the boat and, as she sat there shivering, she noticed that they were staring at her. The wet fabric had moulded itself around her middle. Then their attention was drawn to the approaching shoreline.
‘It’s Trikeri,’ grumbled the woman next to Themis. ‘I was there before.’
There were disgruntled murmurs from a few others. Themis did not understand their dismay. There was one soldier chaperoning them and only one on the land to bring in the boat. It was evident that they did not expect them to escape.
‘At least this island has trees,’ mused Themis as she surveyed the outline of the land they were fast approaching. ‘And surely nowhere could be worse than Makronisos.’
Chapter Seventeen
THE WOMEN WHO had lived on Trikeri before complained bitterly about their return. It seemed a backward step, rather than a move closer to freedom. Themis was in a different mood. Her first impressions were of trees in blossom and the gentle sound of waves lapping on the shore. Perhaps the baby’s heartbeat might synchronise with their rhythm.
As they stood in small groups waiting for someone to tell them what to do, Themis heard the whisper of leaves in the breeze. On Makronisos, any such sound would have been lost in the noise of soldiers shouting and bullying.
Themis held the arm of another woman as they climbed the steep hill away from the shore. Her belly suddenly seemed much more swollen than at the beginning of this journey.
On their way, Themis noticed a monastery. Though she had lost faith in the idea of spiritual protection, she nevertheless wondered if its walls might offer some refuge and hoped that she might be one of those chosen to live inside.
The woman, who had been there before, warned her against it.
‘It’s always dark in there and it’s full of damp. For pity’s sake, don’t get yourself picked. You’re better off in the open air.’
Themis had to believe her but when they were led into a barbed-wire enclosure on the hillside and told to construct their own tents she wondered how anything could be worse. Over the next few days, the women put together makeshift accommodation with stones and lengths of canvas, but it was easy to imagine that even the slightest wind could bring everything down. At night, she thought she could hear the sound of children crying in the distance.
Kindness seemed more common on Trikeri than on Makronisos, though. There were only women prisoners here and they soon called each other adelfí, sister, and acted as though the struggle to hold on to their ideals was a collective rather than a personal one.
Themis’ condition was obvious now and the other women would not allow her to lift even one stone but took on her duties for her. Some of them even gave her part of their own food rations and though the foul stews of beans and dry bread often made her gag, this generosity touched her beyond words. Of course, their concern came with curiosity. Who was the father? Was she married? What would she name the baby? How did it feel to be with child? She avoided answering any of these.
Most of the women were total strangers to Themis and yet it appeared that they would make sacrifices for an innocent, unborn child. As she became less mobile in the last days, Themis realised she had something to offer in return. The women from the villages were often the most physically robust but the least literate. Themis found that she was a natural teacher and, using poems and songs that they already knew by heart, she slowly began teaching them to read and write.
The deep creases of concentration, the joy of satisfaction on their lined faces as they scratched the shapes of the letters for the first time – MI, ALPHA, RO, IOTA, ALPHA – (‘Maria!’ said one), touched her deeply. These same women, when her time came, would be by her side, sharing knowledge that could not be written.
After a week or so, when their clothes were clean, an official photographer arrived. Each woman was to appear in a group shot and they must all smile. It did not matter how many attempts were needed, each photo had to feature a row of contented faces. They were intended to prove to the outside world that these women were healthy, fit and being detained for their own benefit.
When Themis was handed her copy to be sent with a letter home she did not recognise her own face. It was the first time she had seen herself for almost two years and the image that she stared at was not the person she knew. Her hair just touched her ears (though its manly shape had long since grown out) and her face was rounder than she remembered, and lined in a way that made her look ten years older than her twenty-four. She was in the back row of three so it was impossible to see the shape of her body. Perhaps it was just as well as it concealed her pregnancy.
She was handed paper and pencil.
‘Dear Yiayiá,’ she wrote. ‘I am on Trikeri island now. There is a nice convent to stay in and plenty of trees to give us shade. The soldiers here hope I will be released soon, but I am not so sure.’
The letter was returned to her the following morning with the last phrase crudely deleted.
‘Write it again,’ ordered the guard. ‘I’ll watch you.’
There was nothing untruthful in the finished version, but it did not give a single clue to her own feelings. Her letter left on a boat that night and would arrive in Patissia some time later. Themis pictured Kyría Koralis slitting open the envelope and wetting the contents with her tears. She imagined Thanasis scrutinising the photograph and expressing his hopes that she would sign a dílosi.
On one of these long days, when she was immobile with exhaustion, Themis found herself watching one of the women draw. She knew her name was Aliki, but nothing more.
‘Those awful photographs told such lies,’ observed Themis. ‘But your drawings show the truth!’
‘And yet the photographs are what the world sees of us,’ commented Aliki, who was capturing the image of one of the older women. Her tools were a piece of charcoal she had rescued from a fire and a piece of paper she had stolen when they were writing their letters.
‘Were you taught?’
‘Not really,’ answered Aliki. ‘I’ve always liked drawing. I never did well in maths or science. But I could always create likenesses. The teachers didn’t like it much when they found them. It’s strange how threatened people can feel when they see someone else’s version of themselves.’
The marks Aliki made on the paper traced the lines of suffering left by the years of persecution that her subject had endured. The events of past years had not, however, destroyed her beauty and the portrait showed the strength of the woman’s character, her huge almond-shaped eyes as bright as an eagle’s. Aliki had caught the glint of determination and pride.
Themis was sitting watching the image emerge from the page.
‘Kyría Alatzas,’ she proclaimed, ‘you will love what Aliki is doing. She is making you so . . . real!’
The old lady beamed with pleasure, opening her mouth into a wide smile that showed her absence of teeth. It was a gesture that aged her by half a century.
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br /> When it was finished, Aliki passed the drawing across to her to admire.
‘You can keep it,’ she said. ‘Or we can hide it in the usual place. The guards will only destroy it if they can.’
The old lady handed it back. She wanted it to be safe.
Themis admired Aliki for the risk she took to give pleasure to her fellow prisoners. For a while they sat and chatted, sharing their stories of what had brought them to Trikeri.
Aliki’s calm and gentle demeanour changed when she described the stages of her journey.
‘I’m from Distomo,’ she said.
Themis scarcely needed to know more. No one had forgotten the horrific crimes perpetrated there by the Nazis.
‘I lost everything. Parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. And my home. I was able to hide, but I have sometimes wondered if it would have been better for them to find me too.’
Themis was silent. She felt her baby stir within her.
‘Afterwards I managed to get to Athens and find my aunt who was living there. I did nothing for a while. I just stayed in her house. In front of the tribunal, the monster in charge, Lautenbach was his name, stuck to his story that he was trying to protect his men. I saw his face, Themis, and from where I was hiding, I saw him giving instructions. They bayoneted my family, my friend’s child whom I had just baptised, my neighbours . . . I even saw them beheading a priest.’
‘It must have been so terrible . . .’ said Themis quietly.
‘I won’t describe the details to you. They even posed for photographs when they were in the village – while the houses still burned. There’s evidence, Themis. There are photographs of them smiling . . .’
Themis shook her head. It was obvious how much Aliki had suffered.
‘The words of witnesses were ignored and all those in charge were cleared,’ she continued. ‘There has been no justice for those murders, Themis. More than two hundred of them.’
There was neither anger nor bitterness in her voice, which puzzled Themis but, as Aliki talked, she began to understand.
Those Who Are Loved Page 24
